Zika Reveals the True Character of the Cuban Health Service / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 18 August 2016 — While wards 3-A (they have also prepared 3-B) and 4-A, on the third and fourth floors of the  “Lucía Iñiguez Landín” Clinical Surgery Hospital in Holguín, notable for their absence of basic health care requisites, welcome Cuban patients with confirmed and suspected cases of Zika, Dengue Fever and Chunkunguya, ward 5F of the same hospital accommodates foreigners with similar symptoms, in very different conditions.

“The photos I sent you reveal that this is a health service focussed on showing a face which is acceptable to international opinion, and that the enormous difference between the service received by sick foreigners and Cubans has nothing to do with the everlasting claims of lack of resources due to the blockade, but rather the indifference of the government, the state, and MINSAP (Public Health Ministry) toward the health of Cubans.” I have copied the exact words written to me by of one of the doctors working in that hospital.

“The laboratory tests, which are carried out on each patient who is admitted with suspected Zika, Dengue Fever or Chikunguya, are sent to the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK) in Havana, because,” he added, “it is the only place where there is the technology to confirm, or not, the existence of Zika. And this, along with the constant holdups in transport and institutional bureaucracy, means patients have to stay too long in hospital waiting for the results.”

“But the most bizarre part,” adds the doctor indignantly, “is that the unexpected increase in patient admissions, and the time they are there waiting for results, have generated a lot of extra work at Lucía Iñiguez in Holguín, especially cleaning, which is, inexplicably, being covered by female prisoners, who have, basically, been tried for prostitution, with the service contracted to the provincial office of the Ministry of the Interior Prison Directorate.”

Translated by GH